EARTH, Sol System -- The Rapture, long awaited by people who don't want to hang around to see how it all turns out, finally occurred this morning, catching even the most militant biblical literalists by surprise. At approximately two o'clock (GMT), various body parts of pious citizens across the globe simply disappeared.

"Yeah, my bad." apologized the archangel Michael at the post-Rapture press conference. "It's a numbers thing, you see. We'd initially planned for 144,000 male Jewish virgins 'plus guest', making for a maximum total of less than 300,000 people, body and soul."

Industry, transportation and communications worldwide were interrupted after bits of people were raised bodily up to Heaven to be with our LORD. Period keys on keyboards, for example, remained unpushed for the better share of a day after the third fingers of typists departed the right hands to which they had previously been permanently attached, leading to many run-on sentences with no end in sight; sentences that paused occasionally for brief moments to allow the reader to catch his or her breath but that nonetheless proved virtually impossible to bring to a satisfactory and conventional full stop

"Until I punched the clock at the end of the workday I had to pretend that every sentence I typed ended either in excitement or a question." admitted one secretary in a conversation about the missing digit. "Losing it wasn't so bad. What really annoys me is that my eyebrows went 'poof' at the same time. Now no one knows my emotional state; when I'm surprised, and I can assure you that at the time of the Rapture I certainly was, no one in the office could tell. I had to Jiffy Marker some in. Of course one ended up crooked, so now I always look like I'm scheming. Thanks a lot, Jesus."

Further inconveniences have also befallen other occupations as a result of this divine mishap. Across Canada, numerous lumberjacks have reportedly succumbed to colds, following the Heavenly Assumption of their thick, insulating chest hair and manly moustaches. Several vitriolic talkback radio hosts have been unable to muster their characteristic acid and bile on their programs, as a result of the ascent of their spleens, which are now unable to be vented. The mass disappearance of many bachelors' knees has severely compromised their ability to kneel in order to propose marriage, and many injuries have resulted from their attempts to do so.

Jesus Christ, speaking through an interpreter as no one speaks Aramaic anymore, blames the fallout entirely on mankind.

"Of all the parts He could have taken, why did He have to choose my bum?" laments Rainn Wilson of TVs The Office.

"I came back when I said I'd come back, damn it. Romans destroy the Temple...then some tribulations...signs...me! My Olivet discourse, remember? Jesus, it's like you people haven't even read my book. Sigh." said Mr. Christ's interpreter, after the pair took the podium from Michael. "So all this shit happened, I come back shortly after the Second Temple was destroyed in 70 A.D. or so, and 'Boom' I get run over by a camel. The rest of the plan pretty much went to shit after that fiasco. With all the chaos of the Roman occupation and the Diaspora, it took until now for us to figure out how to teleport you here. Well, fragments of you, anyway."

Mr. Christ then yielded the podium to Gabriel, the Rapture's head of logistics. Known as "Heaven's prankster", Gabriel, using Moroni as a pseudonym, once lent a human in the USA some bric-a-brac that he had laying around the afterlife, just to mess with his head.

"I'm even more sorry than Gabriel." he candidly admitted. "The revised plan for the Rapture made sense at the time. Since our Rapture program was delayed for nearly two millennia, the population of the Earth, and the number of 'Rapturable' Christians with it, exploded. We were faced with two options; either expand Heaven to accommodate the huge number of incoming bodies, which would have cost a fortune, or just 'bamph' up the most pious bits. Frankly, we're flabbergasted at the number of cocks and beavers that materialized here. Still, had I known that our attempt to minimize costs would end up so messy, I'd have cancelled the Rapture entirely."

While the mess on Earth proved fairly easy to clean up, as most people lost parts that weren't in use at the time, the mess in Heaven will be harder to clear up, as most of Heaven's staff say that cleaning up a giant pile of bloody appendages isn't in their work description.

"Plus, like this pious ass here," closed Gabriel, holding up an unblemished pair of post-Rapture buttocks, "unless the parts were tattooed, we have no idea to whom they belong. We're probably just going to put the unclaimed parts together and make some really creepy snowmen."